And what made the scene at Comerica Park even more bizarre is that it wasn’t a high-and-tight pitch or a hit batter that started the incident. Detroit designated hitter Victor Martinez fouled off a pitch from Oakland closer Grant Balfour, and stared out to the mound. Balfour, an excitable type who isn’t one to back down from anything, barked at Martinez. Martinez yelled back and started walking toward the mound.

“It's playoff baseball, and everybody knows in the league, including the Oakland team, that Balfour is an energy guy,” Detroit manager Jim Leyland said in his postgame press conference. “He's a hyper guy, an energy guy, and it looked like he came off the mound at Victor. Victor took offense to it, and I don't blame him. I understand that. But other than that, it's playoff baseball and the guy was wound up a little bit, came off yelling at Victor and Victor took offense to it, and I don't blame him.”

The MLB Network cameras caught a lot of the yelling from both players, and it wasn’t hard to read the lips of Balfour and Martinez. They weren’t exchanging pleasantries. Deadspin.com has video (warning, NSFW language) here.

As Martinez and Balfour stomped toward each other, everyone else stormed out from the benches and bullpens. Nothing really happened aside from a lot of animated milling around, and Balfour went on to close out the 6-3 victory for Oakland that gave the A’s a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series.

“It’s all good,” Balfour told Susan Sussler, the A’s beat writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. “I like a little fire.”